Linksys WRT160NL bricked. Now what?

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LOM
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Joined: 28 Dec 2008
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PostPosted: Thu May 27, 2010 14:25    Post subject: Reply with quote
AlxMAX wrote:
LOM: I have checked again the wires. With respect to the same schematic at pinouts.ru, the red one is connected to the pin 2 (charger ground) and the yellow one is connected to the pin 3 (ACI) of the Nokia plug. Consequently, I don't know where to connect the 3.3V of the WRT160NL board.



My 5-wire cable had pin 2,3,4,6,and 7 connected.
No data ground, only "charger ground".
Data ground at pinouts.ru is also listed as "USB gnd", maybe you should use charger ground instead as I had to do?

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AlxMAX
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Joined: 25 Mar 2010
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PostPosted: Thu May 27, 2010 14:45    Post subject: Reply with quote
Well, that's confusing! I have performed more checks and the results are the same: red -> 2, yellow -> 3, white -> 6, green -> 7 and blue -> 8. Do you use the charger ground (pin 2) to connect to the WRT160NL board ground? As far as I know, there are cases where the signal ground is different than the power ground.
LOM
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Joined: 28 Dec 2008
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PostPosted: Thu May 27, 2010 15:42    Post subject: Reply with quote
AlxMAX wrote:
Do you use the charger ground (pin 2) to connect to the WRT160NL board ground?


Yes I do since I didn't have any other ground to choose from Smile

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AlxMAX
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Joined: 25 Mar 2010
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PostPosted: Fri May 28, 2010 5:30    Post subject: Reply with quote
Well, using the ground at pin 2 seems to work fine! I can see a beautiful boot process followed by a kernel panic! Maybe that's why my router was bricked...! Very Happy
LOM
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PostPosted: Fri May 28, 2010 7:47    Post subject: Reply with quote
You can stop the autoboot process by sending lots of Ctrl-C immediately when you see some text from the CFE appearing on the screen.

You will then get a U-Boot prompt and can see the available U-Boot cmds by typing ? or help.
There are cmds for starting a tftp firmware update and you are now not limited to the short tftp transfer window which you normally have before the kernel boots.

Start the tftp transfer on your computer just before you have given the U-Boot tftp command.

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AlxMAX
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Joined: 25 Mar 2010
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PostPosted: Fri May 28, 2010 8:44    Post subject: Reply with quote
Thank you, LOM. I have seen there was only one second to stop the boot process! Eventually, I have managed to send the linksys firmware (because I was sure it was working) and revive the router. The sequence was classic: Ctrl + C to stop the boot process, upgrade code.bin in the uboot prompt to receive the firmware, go to boot the router once the firmware was completely received and flashed. I find the restore process quite difficult. I would change the uboot to wait 3 seconds and make one of the LEDs blinking while uboot waits. If a user presses a button on the router (for instance, the one near the Wireless LED) or a combination, the boot process stops and waits for a firmware via tftp.
LOM
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Joined: 28 Dec 2008
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PostPosted: Fri May 28, 2010 11:17    Post subject: Reply with quote
There is not much to do about the method to get into recovery mode unless one flashes a custom made U-Boot,
the U-Boot boot loader is not part of the dd-wrt firmware or the original Linksys firmware.

Flashing a new boot loader is also a risky operation because if something goes wrong during flashing then there is no way back.

I think we have to live with it as it is, you have now a serial cable and can provide the developers with boot and firmware logs if something should go wrong in the future. Smile

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deathnite
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Joined: 11 Nov 2008
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PostPosted: Mon Nov 22, 2010 12:33    Post subject: Reply with quote
Just bricked my WRT160NL, never used a serial console before, can you please tell me which cables/converter module I should get?

Can I use one of this?
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=160502448112
http://apple.clickandbuild.com/cnb/shop/ftdichip?productID=53&op=catalogue-product_info-null&prodCategoryID=105

_________________
▲ ACTIVE ▲
[Broadcom ARM64] ASUS RT-AC86U v? --802.11ac wave 2-- RT-AC86U Thread | ASUSWRT-Merlin 384.18-Kernel-4.1.27

▼ INACTIVE ▼
[Broadcom ARM] ASUS RT-AC56U v2.00 --802.11ac-- dd-wrt v24-SP2-r23919 | RT-AC56U Thread | ASUSWRT-Merlin 384.6-Kernel-2.6
[Atheros MIPS] Linksys WRT160NL v1.0 --802.11n-- dd-wrt v24-SP2-r20675 | WRT160NL Thread | OpenWrt Barrier Breaker 14.07 r40477-Kernel-3.10
Gingernut
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Joined: 29 Jul 2007
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PostPosted: Mon Nov 22, 2010 14:50    Post subject: Reply with quote
deathnite wrote:
Just bricked my WRT160NL, never used a serial console before, can you please tell me which cables/converter module I should get?

Can I use one of this?
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=160502448112
http://apple.clickandbuild.com/cnb/shop/ftdichip?productID=53&op=catalogue-product_info-null&prodCategoryID=105


This is the one I personally use and has worked perfect for serial console access on many units.

http://cgi.ebay.com/USB-TTL-Converter-Module-cp2102-arm9-max232-max2332-/300420573701?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item45f2762a05
deathnite
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Joined: 11 Nov 2008
Posts: 130

PostPosted: Mon Nov 22, 2010 16:14    Post subject: Reply with quote
Thank you.

Edit Wed Dec 08, 2010 1:44 pm: Successfully recovered the router via serial console. I followed the instructions from the openwrt wiki http://wiki.openwrt.org/toh/linksys/wrt160nl#oem.tftp.install

_________________
▲ ACTIVE ▲
[Broadcom ARM64] ASUS RT-AC86U v? --802.11ac wave 2-- RT-AC86U Thread | ASUSWRT-Merlin 384.18-Kernel-4.1.27

▼ INACTIVE ▼
[Broadcom ARM] ASUS RT-AC56U v2.00 --802.11ac-- dd-wrt v24-SP2-r23919 | RT-AC56U Thread | ASUSWRT-Merlin 384.6-Kernel-2.6
[Atheros MIPS] Linksys WRT160NL v1.0 --802.11n-- dd-wrt v24-SP2-r20675 | WRT160NL Thread | OpenWrt Barrier Breaker 14.07 r40477-Kernel-3.10
Detection
DD-WRT User


Joined: 19 Jan 2012
Posts: 403
Location: UK

PostPosted: Thu Aug 08, 2013 18:11    Post subject: Reply with quote
Guide with images here
http://www.portableandroid.co.uk/forums/index.php?/topic/2673-unlock-samknows-linksys-wrt160nl-monitoring-router/

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Wladimir1969
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Joined: 09 Mar 2014
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PostPosted: Sun Mar 09, 2014 13:41    Post subject: Reply with quote
Detection wrote:
Guide with images here
http://www.portableandroid.co.uk/forums/index.php?/topic/2673-unlock-samknows-linksys-wrt160nl-monitoring-router/

I` follow this guide and i` unable stop autoboot i` try three different TTL adapter one is ca-42, second is the same like in guide and third is MicroNova serial adaptor ,test with twisted(shorted) wires Tx Rx is ok i see output.but unable stop booting Plaess Help (F1)(F1)(F1)
rovanda
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Joined: 25 Apr 2014
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PostPosted: Fri Apr 25, 2014 13:19    Post subject: Reply with quote
my problem too
i can't to stop boot
what do???
rovanda
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Joined: 25 Apr 2014
Posts: 5

PostPosted: Fri Apr 25, 2014 13:21    Post subject: Reply with quote
help me please!!!!!
WiH2014
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Joined: 30 Apr 2014
Posts: 4

PostPosted: Fri May 02, 2014 13:13    Post subject: Bricked wrt160nl Reply with quote
Hi, I also bricked and unbricked a Linksys wrt160nl

What is did was to get original Linksys firmware.
Rename it to code.bin
power on the router and withing a few seconds start;
tftp -I 192.168.1.1 put code.bin

Try it a few times if it doesnot work.

BTW. anyone noticed that the macaddresses of the dd-wrt firmware for the wrt160nl are incorrect!!!!

So if you have more then one, the are having the same mac address in the network, which have strange effects.
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